9 Great Reasons Why Vote Solar’s Equinox Party is a Must-Attend for Anyone in Solar

If you’re any kind of solar pro, you might want to attend Vote Solar’s annual Equinox Party just because California’s Governor Jerry Brown will be there or just because it’s always a blast with tasty food and drink, and 900 or so true-blue solar people. Those are spectacular reasons, for sure, but there’s an even bigger reason:

Attend Equinox because it’s the one place where we can personally thank the entire Vote Solar team for all they did to help the solar industry in 2013. Seriously. They really deserve face-time thanks, or if you can’t make it, at least send a card… with a check in it.

Why is their work so valuable? Think about it: Instead of each of us individually bugging regulators and legislators to protect solar and craft fair solar laws, Vote Solar does it for us, all year, and across the U.S. They’ve been tireless for us.

In fact, I was just reading Vote Solar’s 2013 annual report, and wow, did they have some big solar advocacy wins last year. Here’s the bullet point version:

They ran high profile public campaigns in six states to secure important new solar legislation. Remember AB 327 in California, lifting the cap on net metering? They had a big hand in fixing that, plus other net metering wins in Arizona, Colorado, New York, and Idaho. (Yes, their reach goes all the way to Idaho!)

They intervened in 28 dockets to improve solar regulations in 13 states.

They rallied solar advocates to submit over 76,000 messages to key local decision makers in support of pro-solar policies.

They hired new staff in Boston to ramp up more solar advocacy work on the East Coast.

They helped deliver three innovative new shared solar programs, plus created a new website (sharedrenewables.org) devoted to supporting virtual net metering/solar garden programs across the U.S.

Love solar permitting? Me neither, and we can thank Vote Solar for launching Project Permit, a new campaign to reduce permitting soft costs.

They brought on GroupEnergy, a non-profit project to reduce customer acquisition cost by organizing group solar purchases.

They wonked-out on talking to utilities, encouraging them to prepare for future renewable grid-integration, electric vehicles, storage, and energy imbalance markets.

Last but not least, they shined solar truth on biased reports written by well-funded anti-solar groups like the Edison Electric Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

In short, the Vote Solar team always has our backs, and the funds raised at Equinox directly support their work today. They have an even bigger agenda for 2014, but they can’t do it without our help.

So please join me in personally thanking The Vote Solar Initiative at Equinox and celebrating all of their past and future efforts. They’ll be honoring Governor Brown for championing solar this past legislative session, as well as Mark Ferron, who recently stepped down from the California Public Utility Commission with some powerful words in support of solar.

Below are names of the 13 people who do all of Vote Solar’s amazing solar advocacy work. (Most are in this party photo from Equinox 2013.) We wouldn’t be where we are today without them:

Adam Browning, Executive Director

Gwen Rose, Director of Operations

Annie Lappé, Deputy Director

Jim Baak, Program Director – Grid Integration

Rick Gilliam, Program Director – DG Regulatory Policy

Rosalind Jackson, Director of External Relations

Peter Olmsted, Regional Director – East Coast

Susannah Churchill, Regional Director – West Coast

Hannah Masterjohn, Program Director – New Markets

Jessie Denver, Program Director – GroupEnergy

Kevin Armstrong, Program Manager – GroupEnergy

Nathan Phelps, Program Manager – DG Regulatory Policy

Ashley Malyszka, Development Associate

If you can’t attend Equinox, please show your support by donating something and signing up for Vote Solar’s action alerts.

Thanks for reading, and as always, UnThink Solar.

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